Related Links

University of York Staff Development

Brian Kelly facilitated a workshop session on
"Preparing For The Future: Helping Libraries Respond to
Changing Technological, Economic and Political Change"
at a staff development event for library staff at the University of York.
The workshop was held at the University of York on 4th July 2012.

The session took place from 11.00-13.00 in the the training room.

Abstract

What technological developments might we expect to arrive which will affect the
working environment of the academic library?

We can expect mobile devices to grow in importance and the recent announcement
of Nook ebook readers which cost £29 for the entry level device will require
libraries to make plans for an environment in which students (and staff) will
bring their own device.

We might also expect social media services to continue to grow in importance,
even if its relevance in a leaning context is still not fully appreciated.

There are also developments such as Linked Data, which, after a seemingly
prolonged gestation period, may start to have relevance in the Library world.

But there are dangers of making plans based on technological determinism.
After all many of the predicted developments of our youth have failed to materialise:
we don't travel to work by monorail or spend our summer holidays on the moon!

This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to make use of a
methodology for identifying 'weak signals' of technological developments and
an open sense-making process for discussing the implications of such developments.

However libraries will not only be affected by technological developments.
Economic, social and demographic changes also need to be considered. The workshop
will also consider such issues, including the implications of redundancies and staff
departures which the the funding changes in higher education may see exacerbated.
After all, although in many respects the future is uncertain, we can safely
predict that most of us will at some stage leave our host institution. But although
students may have developed digital literacy skills, have staff and researchers
grown over-reliant on an institutional IT environment, and will be unprepared for
using an IT infrastructure which will be provided in the Cloud?

Materials

Slides

Preparing For The Future: Helping Libraries Respond to
Changing Technological, Economic and Political Change

Biographical Details

Brian Kelly helped to set up probably the first institutional Web service at the
University of Leeds in 1993 when he was the Information Officer in the Computing
Service. He has previously worked in IT Service departments in the Universities
of Loughborough, Liverpool and Leeds. In 1997 he started work at UKOLN, University
of Bath where he is a national adviser on innovative uses of the Web.